Last Saturday morning, I had the privilege of being a Judge for the 2024 Global Digital Innovation Challenge run by Haskayne School of Business.
The Innovation Challenge is a creative space for students to develop an improvement strategy for a real life business.
I was blown away by the depth of analysis, innovation and creative thinking the students brought to the presentations. Kudos to every team, they all did an awesome job.🙌
After seeing all the presentations, here are 9 of my reflections and learnings that I took away:
1) 🏗️Build.
Start with what’s working and replace what’s not. This keeps staff engaged because it takes into account their improvements made to date.
2) 🧑🤝🧑Holistic.
To successful implement innovation, you need consider all core areas of a business: Vision, People, Technology, Sales, Customers.
3) 📃Assess.
Take stock of the current state, the situation and any factors that might impact the change.
4) 🔊Feedback.
Ask questions and get feedback from the business owner, the team, and customers. They know the problems and have good ideas on what to fix. Plus it brings them along the journey.
5) 🏆Wins.
Innovative solutions can take time to deliver so identify quick wins to build momentum. And show how the quick wins contribute to the long term, strategic change.
6) 🗺️Roadmap.
Show the key tasks and estimated delivery timeline. This sets expectations and gives people a roadmap to follow.
7) 🔎Vision.
Align your innovation to the overall vision and goals of the business founder or leaders.
8) 👓Outsight.
Don’t jump to the first, good solution. Think slow, act fast. Look at the situation, analyze problems, consider options, recommend the best fit solution.
9) 📝Benchmark.
Look at what others are doing to solve problems similar to yours, learn from them and potentially partner with them.
